WALTER AMERIKA MEDIA

Walter's Expertise

Walter is an independent brand and innovation consultant and expert on creativity and the creative industries.
He shares his insights and ideas on ‘socio-economic creativity’ with private companies (new and existing) and public organizations to create added value.
Design thinking, brand building, scenario sketching are his main working tools.
Next to that he is Head of the Market Department of the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven, strategy advisor for the Executive Board of the University of the Arts Utrecht, co-founder of CI NeXt (the leading agenda for academic and applied research for business innovation within the Dutch Creative industries) and member of the advisory boards of Dutch Creative Residencies Network and startup company Layergloss
He is the former chairman and chief creative officer of the FHV/BBDO Marketing Communication Group in Amsterdam and member of the BBDO European Board. He was also Chairman of the Dutch Art Directors Club and member of the Dutch EFFIE jury, chairman of the Dutch Design in Development Foundation, member of the advisory board of EU project Custom Fit and ambassador of the Dutch Design Awards and chairman of the creative board of CCAA (Creative Cities Amsterdam Area).

Creative Industry Netherlands

The 18th of august news got out that Dutch car sales are forecasted to sink to the level of 1969 at the end of 2014, according to research bureau Aumacon and Dutch news broadcaster RTL Nieuws.

Although the overall sales have been relatively steady over the last ten years, Aumacon Director Dickmann tells the real causes of the smaller demand of personal cars are structural. He notices that cars are less important for a daily commuter and less of a status symbol for younger generations. That effect is also noticeable in the car sales that indeed are made; a clear shift towards the purchase of the smaller car. Sales of electric car’s won’t be at the level of last year but the level isn’t declining. Only in the premium market the sales are increasing, though relatively small.

What would this effectively mean? Of course trading in your big, old fuel consuming SUV for a smaller, hybrid efficient model sounds logical. Fuel prices have gone up steadily and are looking to do so in the foreseeable future. Oldtimers in the Netherlands are confronted with new legislation according to modern output emission standards, at least in the major cities, so car owners might see that as a logical moment to say goodbye to their old friends.

More importantly and worrying though for car manufacturers should be the product experience of Generation Y drivers. These younger drivers haven’t seem to have the attachment to the automobile itself such as the generations before them. Generation Y is known for it’s self-sufficient attitude. Relatively highly educated they are familiar with going to work or study by train and other public transportation. In addition, they are too ambitious to ‘make the same mistake’ as the earlier generations to stand still in traffic jams and would want to contribute to solving that problem.

But then again, why don’t we see the same trend in the USA or other European countries? Well, we do, if you know where to look.

In 1969 the best sold car in the Netherlands was the Peugeot 204. In the USA, and I don’t even know what the numbers on car sales were, they sold the Charger in 1969. The Dodge Charger, for crying out loud. A car so drop-dead gorgeous looking and powerful it still is one of the most featured cars in racing movies today.

Of course we know that Americans like their cars big anyway as the pickup truck still is the best sold car in the USA today. In general, the car is still very practical in the USA and also a status symbol. Younger Americans though aren’t that attached though to their cars it seems, especially students living in big cities. They also, like their European counterparts, prefer public transportation or other ways to commute. It is no surprise that these developments go hand in hand with the rise of new apps that want to provide better service for current transport possibilities, like Uber. Also, when we don’t want to part from our cars just yet, why not share the cost of having the car with other possible users? That’s the idea behind Snappcar in the Netherlands and it seems to work.

Uber is experiencing legislation resistance in most European countries at the moment. It is clear that governments will have a hard time figuring out a way to regulate current business infrastructures and still allow innovative business models (through apps) to evolve. In any case, they must find a way for Generation Y isn’t very fond of not getting what they want…

Dutch TV Show Tegenlicht (NPO) has made an interesting item about the future of the car. Watch it here.

Nowadays as a high school graduate in the Netherlands it is absolutely straightforward to leave the parental house and move to the big city to study if you wish and are able to do so. Traveling between college and home might be doable but would not be preferable. You would just miss out on social and work related opportunities in the big city, where knowledge and creativity are all around you.

As a matter of fact, today is the last day of the Utrechtse Introductie Tijd 2014 (better known as UIT) and is one big week of festivities and activities for students to-be in the central city of Utrecht. Of course a lot of students would at some occasion want to know where the library is where they should spend at least the coming for years of their lives and come up with great ideas and theories, but for now they just want to know where the best pubs and parties are and marvel at city life. And for that matter, great minds probably need great parties, so Utrecht should have it’s fair number of great minds then…

And naturally this process occurs in Amsterdam, Groningen, Delft, Tilburg and Maastricht and other University cities. So after these weeks, thousands of students come to realize they want to live there and if they are a bit lucky, meet boyfriends and girlfriends, get children and live there happily ever after.

But where do the greatest minds before us have gone? What were the cultural and economical hotspots of the world before the student introduction weeks? And what if they were also writers, doctors, actors, kings and other ‘notables’? Luckily we know now, thanks to a study compiled by Maximilian Schich and his colleagues of the University of Texas, Dallas. They were interested in bringing science to the humanities as a way to understand how complex work arise and with help of a database from freebase.com, Schich e.a. recorded the birthplace and place of death of 150,000 notables (www.livescience.com). In general, we can see that the number of applications that use open and free databases to provide new insights is increasing rapidly and opens up all new sorts of challenges for data visualizers.

The result of this particular study is a stunning video (tip: expand the window) with illuminated ‘life-lines’ of these people on a global scale and so it turns out that the Netherlands (and Amsterdam in particular) relatively late attracts a lot of great thinkers but once the word was out, it got pretty crowded. Not sure though whether that mainly had to do with an increase in creativity, knowledge and Universities or… an increase in good parties.